Thursday, August 21, 2014

John Maynard Keynes was once asked about a change in his position. "When the facts change, sir, I change my mind. What do you do?" In this as in other respects François Hollande is evidently not a Keynesian. In an interview with Le Monde, he said:

Heaven forbid that he should tack or zigzag, because that "would make our policy incomprehensible." As things are, of course, that policy is a model of limpid clarity. The fact that it is not producing any results to be proud of does not preclude the possibility that it will produce results tomorrow. The fact that the government has already tacked and zigzagged on a hundred points, most recently after the Constitutional Council struck down a key component of its Responsibility Pact, must not be confused with the kinds of tacks and zigzags proposed by its critics, which would only confuse matters by moving in a different direction. And that would be a disaster, because the remedy for all the government's failures to date is to "accelerate the reform." When a wall looms in the path of an onrushing vehicle, acceleration may not be the best strategy, but Hollande le Mou has evidently been advised by his media counselors to emphasize his firmness, and, by golly, he has mastered the art of repeating ad nauseam "I will not change course."

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I have been a student and observer of French politics since 1968. In that time I've translated more than 130 books from the French, including Tocqueville's Democracy in America and Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. I chair the seminar for visiting scholars at Harvard's Center for European Studies and am a member of the editorial board of French Politics, Culture, and Society and of The Tocqueville Review/La revue Tocqueville. You can read some of my writing on French politics and history here and a short bio here. From time to time I will include posts by other students of France and French politics (accessible via the index link "guest"). My hope is that this site will become a gathering place for all who are interested in discussing and analyzing political life in France. You can keep track of posts on Twitter by following "artgoldhammer".